The Blue Collar Scholar

It took a while for the American colonists to begin thinking of themselves as colonies that could bond together to resist British imperial policy, let alone rallying together for the purpose of independence. But, before we can get to July 4, 1776, we have to understand all of the British policies and American reactions that built momentum that would eventually become the American Revolution. This episode covers such things as the Stamp Act, the Tea Act, the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Massacre, the Intolerable Acts, etc.

The prophet Jeremiah makes several references to a "Queen of Heaven" that was being worshipped by some Jews of his generation. God, through Jeremiah, condemns this blatant act of polytheism. But this raises two questions: Who or what is this "Queen of Heaven?" And why was the attraction to worship her so powerful in a culture that was supposed to be devotedly monotheistic? Note: Roman Catholics sometimes use the term "Queen of Heaven" as an honorific title for Mary, the virgin mother of Christ. For obvious chronological reasons, Jeremiah was not referring to her. This episode will explore the ancient Near East's polytheistic roots of the Queen of Heaven.

Why and how did England plant its flag on the Eastern Seaboard of North America? What was the purpose of the 13 colonies? Were the colonies established for different reasons and purposes? What role did religion, business, and war play? We will explore these and other similar topics that lay a foundation of British colonization of the East Coast of North America.

The Fall 2023 class for the NCCC Lifetime Learning program was called "Women in the Bible." Over the next few weeks, this podcast feed will provide lecture audio for that class. But before we can dig into individual women in the Bible and their stories, we need to back up and look at the entire Bible's timeline from a bird's eye view. From the earliest days of prehistory in Genesis to the height of Roman Imperial control of Israel as documented in the New Testament, this episode attempts to cover (briefly) all of it.

This episode launches our Spring 2024 class: The American Revolution. Join us as we travel back to the birth of democracy in ancient Athens, the Magna Carta in 1215 England, the Protestant Reformation, and the Age of European exploration and colonization in the Americas. We also, admittedly, chase a few bunny trails about WWII, Jewish history, the 27th Amendment, etc.

This episode is the finale that closes out The World Wars class. We will briefly cover the rapid growth of the American and Soviet nuclear programs after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the beginning of the Cold War.

The development of the atomic bomb remains one of the greatest scientific achievements of all time, as well as one of the most controversial tools of death ever used against other human beings. This episode digs into the origins of the Manhattan Project, which saw the United States & Allies invest billions of dollars into a project that made sure that the Allies got the A-Bomb before Hitler or Imperial Japan.

The Second World War in the Pacific hinges on Midway. Before Midway, Japan found unbelievable success. After Midway, Japan lost territory, as well as their necessary manpower to hold all that they conquered. But Midway was in the first year of the Pacific war. Japan fought tooth-&-nail to hold their conquests, and made the Allies fight with all that they had for another 3 years. In this episode, we will cover the events from Midway to Okinawa, often referred to as "island hopping."

Imperial Japan had an incredible undefeated streak that went a half of a year after their attack on Pearl Harbor. The US, the UK, Australia, the Netherlands, and the other Allies were unable to stop Japan as they spread their Empire over many islands and peninsulas all over the Pacific Ocean and coastal Asia. But Imperial Japan met their match when they went toe-to-toe with the US Navy at the tiny island of Midway. Though WWII in the Pacific would drag on for three more long years, the Battle of Midway proved to be the turning point in the Pacific.

Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor? How did they do it? What military moves did Imperial Japan make immediately following their successful first strike? Download, listen, and find out!

This episode explains the history of Japan, from the origins of the Emperor's Chrysanthemum Throne, to the rise of the shoguns, to rise of late-19th Century and early-20th Century Japanese militarism. We will examine Japan's multiple military successes from the late 1890s to the early 1940s, the atrocities of the Rape of Nanking, and the military reasons for attacking the United States.

As you can see on this podcast page, The Blue Collar Scholar has been on hiatus for some time. However, we are back! This episode attempts to get caught up a bit. This podcast episode covers the lecture notes for four different lectures, all related to WWII in Europe: (1) The Battle of Britain & Operation Barbarosa, (2) The Holocasut, (3) D-Day, & (4) Allied Victory.

This sermon draws on the story of King David bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem to illustrate four lessons for Christians today.

The European Theater of World War II will be our focus on the podcast for the next few months. (In the Spring, we will shift the focus to the Pacific Theater.) For the Nazis, the earliest stages of the Second World War was a series of successes. After their six-week conquest of France - the strongest of the Allies in World War I, and the nation Germany wasn't able to conquer in four years in the trenches of WWI - the Nazis could boast about their conquests of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. Thanks to their non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, Germany stood as the lone continental power, with everyone else conquered, an ally, or decidedly neutral. Only the United Kingdom stood between Hitler and absolute victory.

This episode briefly explores the Paris Peace Conference, Prohibition, the Roaring '20s, technological advances after WWI, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the Spanish Civil War, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria & China, and the rise of Adolf Hitler.

In this podcast episode, we will take a criminally-brief dive into World War 1, why it started, who were the major belligerents, and how WWI set the stage for WWII.

This short episode of The Blue Collar Scholar is a book review and enthusiastic recommendation to read or listen to "Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South" by Stephanie McCurry.

This episode kicks off a new class for Spring 2023: The World Wars. The first episode quickly summarizes all the wars and industrialization that helped form the great belligerent nations of the First & Second World War, namely the United States, the United Kingdom, Tsarist Russia (and the USSR), Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, China, & Japan.

This podcast episode will conclude the lessons for the Fall 2022 New Testament class. This episode is a survey of New Testament theology, examining the Doctrine of Man, the Doctrine of the Church, and Eschatology (the study of the End Times).

We will close out the New Testament class with a few lessons on New Testament Theology. First up, we will discuss monotheism and the Trinity.

This episode will cover the class notes of the last three class periods for the New Testament class. In this episode, we will briefly discuss how the original manuscripts of the New Testament were transmitted through time to us today. We will also take a look at translation philosophies of English translations and discuss the value of a few of them. The second half of the podcast will deal with the King James Version of the Holy Bible. We will look at the history of early English translations, the reasons why James I called the Hampton Court Conference to produce what would become the KJV, and take a look at the KJV-Only controversy.

As a time-saving measure, I will be switching formats for the rest of the semester. Instead of sharing classroom audio, these episodes will use the same notes that I use to teach, but it will be a podcast format instead of classroom audio. This episode digs into the question of the "canon," the authoritative list that is our New Testament. How did these 27 books and no others make the cut?

This episode completes the three-part sub-series of biographies of the New Testament. In this episode, we take a look at the biography of Saul of Tarsus, who went by the Greek name Paul (or Paulos) once his apostolic ministry brought him primarily into Gentile and multicultural cities in Asia Minor & Europe.

This episode gives an overview of all the Apostles of Christ, as well as all of the individuals who could possibly be called Apostles based on the text of various New Testament verses. This episode depends on the evidence of New Testament texts, but mostly on church tradition. Where did all the Apostles go during and after Acts? How did they die? What can we learn from these Apostles?

Now that we have examined each of the books of the New Testament, we will begin to synthesize the material. We shall start with an overview of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, called Christ, or Messiah. In this episode, we look at Jesus' birth, His ministry, His miracles, His death, His Resurrection, and His prophesied return.

You will certainly hear multiple talking heads on documentaries or semi-educational programming talking about how the 27 books of the New Testament were chosen "arbitrarily," and that there are hundreds of books that were "erased" or "removed" from the New Testament canon, with the implication being that the Christianity that emerged from the first 3 centuries was really just the survivor of a no holds barred grudge match of multiple Christianities, and that there is no reason to believe that "orthodox Christianity" is the correct one. Needless to say, I do not think much of this hypothesis. Indeed, these other books that were "removed" from canon were never considered to be real contenders as orthodox documents, and for good reason. In this podcast, we will discuss the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, and the Gospel of Judas as we look at the history of Gnostic writings and their rediscovery in the 19th & 20th Centuries.

This episode gives a brief overview of the Church Fathers. We discuss the importance of the Council of Nicaea, the Ontological Argument, The Schism between the Eastern and Western Church, and the Protestant Reformation. Unfortunately, I do not have the time or the expertise to spend as much time on the text of the Early Church Fathers' writings as I would like. But the good news is that most-if-not-all of these writings are available for free online, so you can look these texts up on your own.

We complete our study of the text of the New Testament by taking a look at Luke & Acts, which together make Luke the Evangelist the most prolific author of the New Testament. Through Luke, we have most of Paul's ministry accounts which puts the many letters of Paul in their proper context.

The New Testament opens with four accounts of Jesus life. The first two of these Gospels, Matthew and Mark, are the topic of discussion in this lecture. In this episode we will discuss the two earliest written Gospel accounts. We discuss which of the Gospels, Matthew or Mark, is the first written. We also look into the mysterious Q source, and make an argument that Q represents the oral traditions of the earliest Christians.

The four books with the word "John" in them plus the book of Revelation all all written by an author named "John." This could be several different Johns, or it could be The Apostle John. In this episode, I make the case that the Apostle John could be the author of all five books, even though the books are very, very different.

The #1 disciple, Simon (who Jesus named Peter) left us 2 letters. And Jude, the half-brother of Christ, gave us a short letter that is very similar in style and substance to 2 Peter. So in this episode we analyze these three epistles. Why, for instance, do these three letters refer to &/or quote the non-canonical book First Enoch? What warnings do these epistles give us to avoid false teachers? What relationship does the ministry of Peter have with the ministry of Paul and the other apostles?

This episode explores the incredible, academic, and very Jewish book called Hebrews. Who wrote it? Who is Melchizedek? What about those warning passages? ... In the second half, we look at the epistle of James. Also written to a predominately Jewish audience, the half-brother of Jesus gives us a robust defense of good works in the closest thing in the New Testament to Proverbs.

There is significant disagreement amongst scholars as to whether the Apostle Paul really wrote 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, or Titus, collectively known as the Pastoral Epistles. In this episode we will discuss the possibility of pseudonymity and also the possibility that Paul is the author. We also look into some of the content of the books. We also look at Titus and Timothy, the men who received these instructional letter. Finally, we look at why 2 Timothy is so different in tone from any other Pauline epistle, since this letter seems to have been written shortly before his inevitable execution.

As the Book of Acts comes to a close, the Apostle Paul finds himself in prison. While under guard in house arrest, Paul is able to commune with the Roman church and to communicate with other churches via letters. It is highly likely that Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians (known collectively as the "prison epistles") were written at this time.

The church at Corinth was the Apostle Paul's most messed up church. But he loved them and stuck with them. In this episode we analyze two of his largest letters, both sent to the Christian church in this important Greek city.

Salvation is an important part of theology. Indeed, it is one of the core doctrines of Christian theology and the Gospel is the core theme of all of Paul's writings. Since Romans is a letter written by Paul to a church he has not yet visited, he seems to have been careful to lay out his teaching about the Gospel more clearly in Romans than in any other epistle. In this episode we will examine "The Romans Road to Salvation" that uses verses exclusively from Romans to show a person how to be saved.

Romans is the best theological text ever written. In this episode, we will examine who wrote it, why it was written, to whom it was written, and what are the major themes taught by the epistle to the Romans. This episode also contains an impromptu classroom discussion over the role of women as presented in Paul's writings.

In this episode, we begin our discussions about the actual text of the New Testament. We start by introducing the author of much of it, the Apostle Paul. Next, we briefly look at Galatians and both epistles to the Thessalonians.

Knowing about the Roman Empire is key to understanding the context of the New Testament. Jesus, His disciples, and the Apostle Paul all ministered in the Roman Empire. Judea, Galilee, Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt, and (obviously) the Italian Peninsula were all part of the Empire. Every person who heard one of their sermons, received healing, or joined the growing church was a subject of Rome. This episode covers Roman history from Romulus to the Fall of the Empire.

In this episode we take a brief look at the world created by Alexander the Great's monumental conquests, and by his early death and the fracturing of his empire. We will then focus in on the Jewish people living in this time, and add another layer to our knowledge of the world that the New Testament was introduced to.

This is a valiant attempt at a thorough overview of the Old Testament in a single lecture. In this episode, we examine the story of the Old Testament in chronological order as presented in the texts of the Old Testament. We also take a look at major themes of the Old Testament.

This episode is a brief survey of the major civilizations and empires that constitute the appropriate context for the Old Testament, which itself is the most important bit of context for the New Testament.

This fall we are starting a new class as we dig into the New Testament. In this episode, we preview the order of topics we will cover along the way, look at the Koine Greek text that the New Testament was originally written in, and discuss the importance of reading the texts in chronological order so as to identify and assess theological development in the New Testament.

This is a sermon given at a local United Methodist church in my hometown on 8/21/2022. This sermon acts as an introduction, of sorts, to the New Testament class that will dominate this podcast feed for the next few months. I hope you enjoy!

In this episode, we wander into dangerous, controversial waters: namely, current events. The events of January 6, 2021, have put Donald Trump in hot water and in danger of criminal prosecution. Once upon a time in the '70s, another former President was in a similar situation. Back then, President Ford chose to pardon Nixon, almost certainly ending his chances to win in 1976, but saving us all from an incredible legal/political circus. Should Biden consider making the same offer to Trump? What are the advantages and disadvantages of such an admittedly unlikely move?

The Civil War changed the United States of America. Just how the war changed our country is explored in this episode of the podcast. We will also take on many controversies related to the Civil War, like the Confederate battle flag and Confederate statues.

Reconstruction was the process by which all the states that had seceded from the United States were reintegrated into the Union. It is also the time when Constitutional Amendments were ratified that laid the framework to give Civil Rights to African-Americans. Those amendments, thankfully, proved to be resilient as nearly every other bit of social justice progress made in the Reconstruction era was challenged and repressed by a white supremacist society, by hostile Southern state and local governments, and by the Hayes Administration that removed federal military protection in the South. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments laid the framework for the Civil Rights Era a century later.

Even before the Civil War was over, the attempt to reframe the entire Confederate project was underway. The result was "The Lost Cause," which asserted that the South was a superior culture with superior warriors, and that the war was only lost because the North had overwhelming numbers and supplies. But mostly, The Lost Cause begs us to believe that slavery was not the cause of secession or the war. In this podcast, we will analyze The Lost Cause philosophy.

What if the South had won the Civil War? What if Stonewall Jackson had not died at Chancellorsville? What if Abraham Lincoln was never assassinated? What if McClellan had taken Richmond and won the war in the Peninsular Campaign?

This episode documents the final battles and offensives that resulted in the surrender of the military forces of the South and the collapse of the Confederate States of America. We will also look at the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.